Is it necessary to change a 23 yo fuse box?

[FiremanT]

The electrician said that any 23 year old CU is due for replacement.l

Thanks for any comments

 

[EFLImpudence]

It depends.

 

[EFLImpudence]

To be more helpful, if it were in my property and it is in good order then I wouldn't bother.

However, if the property is to be let then you will be advised to bring it up to the latest modern standards as it is generally thought that tenants must have every modern safety device available because - well, just because.

 

[securespark]

Because they're worth it

 

[JohnW2]

Because they're worth it

Who/what is 'worth it' - the tenants, or 'every possible modern safety device' (or both!!) ?

Kind Regards, John

 

[flameport]

adding a double socket to the house 32a circuit

That consumer unit is old, and certainly would be beneficial to replace it.
However replacement is not necessary for the addition of a double socket to one of the existing circuits.

 

[FiremanT]

That consumer unit is old, and certainly would be beneficial to replace it.
However replacement is not necessary for the addition of a double socket to one of the existing circuits.

Thanks.

In what respect would it be "beneficial"? Is it £550 worth of beneficial?

 

[Notch7]

Should I replace my consumer unit, it was installed in 1959.

 

[securespark]

Yes!

And the rest!

 

[JohnW2]

Should I replace my consumer unit, it was installed in 1959.

I somehow dioubt that it is a "Consumer Unit", by any definition of which I am aware

In 1959, the house I was in did not even have anything which one could really call a 'fuse box' - just a couple of cast iron switch-fuses ('re-wireable', of course)!

Kind Regards, John

 

[securespark]

The brown Wylex fuseboxes made their debut a few years before.

 

[JohnW2]

The brown Wylex fuseboxes made their debut a few years before.

Maybe, but I would then have been too young to 'notice' them. I know of the cast iron switch-fuses because it continued to be the case that there was nothing other than them in my parents house (which we moved into in 1956) until well into the 70s

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

My parents house 1954 had a 4 fuse Wylex unit. As did my house 1978. Not sure when the Consumer unit arrived? I think in the 90's, a CU is a type tested distribution unit. Personally I want RCD protection so would change it, but unless you alter the bathroom bonding there is not requirement to up grade.

 

[securespark]

I'll try and do some more research into the Wylex fuseboxes.

I was told by the technical guy Ian Kenworthy at Wylex in the 90s that the Standard fusebox was introduced in 1956 but he may have been a few years out.

 

[JohnW2]

I'll try and do some more research into the Wylex fuseboxes. I was told by the technical guy Ian Kenworthy at Wylex in the 90s that the Standard fusebox was introduced in 1956 but he may have been a few years out.

Thanks. That's all quite possible. It was well into the 60s before I first saw anything that we would recognise as a 'fusebox', and I imagine that the first ones I saw would have been Wylex Standards.

Kind Regards, John